Africa-Press – Mozambique. There has been “a significant reduction” in the number of kidnappings registered in Mozambique in recent months, declared President Daniel Chapo on Wednesday.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony at the Police Science Academy (ACIPOL) on the outskirts of Maputo, Chapo attributed the recent successes to “the coordinated actions of the defence and security forces, police intelligence, improved criminal investigation and regional cooperation”.
This work, Chapo said, had led to the location of the leaders of kidnap gangs. “We shall continue to work implacably against the kidnappers”, he pledged.
Dismantling kidnap gangs “is not just a police operation. It is a battle for the trust of national and foreign investors”, stressed the President. “Each businessman who feels safe will invest more in Mozambique”.
The wave of kidnappings for ransom in Maputo and other major cities began in 2011, targeting in particular businesspeople of Asian origin. The Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA) repeatedly warned the government that the kidnappings were driving businessmen out of the country.
“In dismantling the criminal networks”, said Chapo, “we are not just arresting offenders. We are restoring trust in the country, trust in the Mozambican economy, in justice, and in the authority of the State”.
He recalled that in December, in his State of the Nation address, he had warned that Mozambique “will not be a safe haven for the practice of kidnapping. We warned that those who attempt to challenge the Mozambican State will receive a reply in line with their provocation. That response has already begun”.
The reduction in kidnapping, added Chapo, “shows that crime can be combatted effectively when there is strategy, professionalism, integrity, loyalty, discipline, responsibility, competence, investigative rigour and patriotic commitment”.
With the entry of the newly trained graduates into the ranks of the police, he said, “our expectation is that we shall continue to squeeze the kidnapping industry in Mozambique until it has passed into history”.
As the coverage in the Mozambican press showed, the government is also scoring successes in the fight against corruption, said Chapo. He expected the ACIPOL graduates “to strengthen the pressure on the corrupt, who are sucking on the few resources of the Mozambican state and people”.
“The place of the corrupt, the thieves and the kidnappers is in jail”, he declared. “We do not agree to live with this kind of cancer. We know there will be resistance, but we are not going to stop”.
Source: AIM
